Taking control of your email account is one of the best things you can do for your digital life.

Gmail is one of the most popular free email providers, and there are many ways to improve your experience. Here are five to try:

1. Blocking People

This is a new feature for the website and Android apps that allows you to block specific senders. On the Gmail website, you need to open an email and click the inverted triangle in the upper-right corner of the message and select "Block Sender".

This is useful for stopping emails from annoying people and companies that don't stop emailing you even after you unsubscribe.

2. Apply a Filter

Use a filter to prioritize your emails. For some emails, this means putting a filter in place that automatically deletes them so you don't even see them in your inbox.

There are also settings for archiving the email, forwarding it, or labeling it so you can find it easily.

A filter can be set for a specific sender or by keyword. To set one, open the email and click the inverted triangle in the upper-right corner of the message and select "Filter similar emails." The first screen lets you choose what to filter, and the second screen tells you what to do with it.

3. Archive All

If you're one of those people who hate deleting, then use the archive feature for every message. This means the email disappears from your inbox, but you can still access it using search.

Archiving emails with just text won't take up much space, anything with videos and photos will slowly eat up your free 15GB of storage.

4. Enable Undo Send

This allows you to return emails you've sent by accident. Click the gear symbol, select Settings, select Undo Send, and click Enable. You can set an undo period (Google recommends 30 seconds), and then save your changes.

5. Use labels

If you like to organize everything in folders, then you can use labels with Gmail. This means you can find emails easily (although search is usually faster), and you can set them up on the side of your inbox so you can see them at a glance.

To create them, go to the Settings menu, then select "Labels" on the horizontal bar. You can create labels and choose to hide them or make them visible. If you want to rank them, use numbers before the name to organize them.

Don't forget to go back and set up filters if you want emails to have certain labels automatically.